Confirmation of minutes – Michaelmas 2017

The minutes from the Michaelmas 2017 TGM were agreed.

Matters arising from the minutes

Ratification of amendment to the Rules & Procedures.

The following motions passed the 66% threshold required initially for changes to the Rules & Procedures at the Michaelmas 2017 TGM when they were first proposed. In order to be adopted into the Rules & Procedures, a majority in favour was required at this second reading.

Whereas, the term “green” is more universally applicable when one is referring to the environment/green officer, and it fundamentally carries the same responsibilities as the term “environment”, i.e., environment, ethics, and sustainable living. In addition, most other environment-related groups in Cambridge use this term, including the JCR. Taking care of the student-run garden for one year (behind 70 Storey’s Way and the Greenhouse) made it more clear what responsibilities should exist. It is therefore resolved that the Churchill College Middle Common Room (supports/is against) the following to be amended in section 209: Environment Officer:

Section 209: Green Officer

The Green Officer shall be responsible for promoting environmental, ethical and sustainable issues within the MCR, looking after the Churchill Garden Society. She/he shall run the College recycling and food wasting collection scheme together with the Green Officer in the Junior Common Room. She/he shall liaise with the Green Officer in the Junior Common Room and the CUSU Environment Officer.

Essential duties of the Green Officer:

Promote environmental, ethical and sustainable issues within the MCR.

Manage the Churchill Garden Society and the student-run gardens behind 70 Storey’s Way by involving new (especially in Fresher’s Week) and existing members in gardening activities. Communications will be made via channels like the chu-veggie-growers mailing list and/or dedicated Facebook group page. Gardening activities must include meetings amongst the society members to discuss what to plant/sow in spring, watering rota for summer and planting-bed preparation for winter.

Liaise with the College Head Gardener for every issue related with the Churchill Garden Society.

Run the College recycling and food wasting collection scheme together with the Green Officer from the Junior Common Room.

Liaise with the Green Officer from the Junior Common Room and the CUSU Environment Officer.

A second vote was held on this amendment. The results of the vote were: For (21) Against (0) Abstain (0). A majority is achieved, so the Rules & Procedures will be amended accordingly.

Questions to the Committee

Committee Reports

President:

The President has attended the Spring Ball Alcohol Working Group recently, which was convened to discuss how the Spring Ball committee can encourage responsible consumption of alcohol at Spring Ball. The committee thanked the outgoing President for his hard work during the past year.

Treasurer:

Nothing to report

Secretary:

The secretary apologised for errors in emails sent out in the run up to the upcoming elections, and reminded people to vote once the elections opened on 23rd January at 9:00.

Academic:

Nothing to report.

Bar Secretary:

The bar secretary reported that guest night was a success, and drew people’s attention to the upcoming beer tasting. The bar rota has also been successsfully organised for this term, so the bar should be open most nights.

Bar Treasurer:

Bar is all stocked up!

Computing:

Nothing to report

Environmental:

The Environmental/Green officers passed on the good news that Churchill achieved a platinum award in the first quiz of this year’s Student Switch-Off Campaign. They are also preparing for the first Green Impact Challenge meeting of this term.

Equipment:

The coffee machine has been fixed. We are also looking for suggestion for new games for the PS4 – so please send in your suggestions or post them on the facebook page.

External Social Secretary:

Nothing to report.

Internal Social Secretary:

If you know of anybody who might be interested in the Internal Social Secretary role, and is able to be involved for the whole next year. Please let the committee know ASAP if this sounds like you!

Family’s Officer:

Nothing to report

LGBT+ Officer:

LGBT history month is next month, and there will be lots of formals celebrating this at various colleges. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to host one at Churchill due to the rate that college wished to charge us.

First Year Rep:

Thank you all for coming to the Hallowe’en and Christmas parties last term!

Welfare Officers:

Welfare teas are a continued success, but at the rate college charges, we could be using funds more effectively if we just buy the food in ourselves.

Matters for Discussion

Welcoming Committee Members for uncontested positions

The new committee members are as follows:

Men’s Welfare – Janosz Dewberry

Bar Treasurer – Angela Harper & Ben Ashbridge

External Social Secretary – Jocelino Rodrigues & Tom Winder

Families’ Representative – Bang Ming Yong

Hustings for Contested Positions

Hustings for the executive positions were held, and for the contested position of Women’s Welfare. Elections for these positions open at 9:00 on 23rd January and close at 9:00 on the 25th.

Hustings for President

Initial Speech:

Malavika: I am a 2nd year PhD student at the Materials Science department. I want to continue to welfare team’s and president’s work from this year, and continue to make the MCR more accessible to the MCR population. I want to continue to work on changing the focus of some of our MCR events, and how our MCR space is used, so that events we put on represent the interest of more of our members, rather than just a more vocal minority.

Questions to the candidates:

Sam: Do you have an particular ideas for how we could use the TV room better?

Malavika: We’ve discussed this before, and I think we should try and change the feel in there a bit, maybe by moving the foozball table into the bar areas, and the tables in the bar areas out into the TV room.

Max: How are you going to put on more events without disadvantaging people who currently enjoy the events that already exist? How will you take account of the fact that we are limited in the number of events we can put on due to man hour availability?

Malavika: I don’t want to substitute events at the expense of alienating people, and I think we do have the capacity to put on more events. It’s not necessarily a problem of limited resources, it’s about the better allocation of resources.

Hustings for General Secretary

Initial Speech:

Jack: I am going into the 3rd year of my PhD, and I have been on the committee for the last 2 years. I’m interested in keeping the MCR informed about everything going on (as well as keeping up the running of guest night even if we don’t have an internal social secretary). I want to try and encourage people to visit the events page of the website (especially for those who don’t check their emails or the FB apge very often).

Questions to the candidates:

Sam: What do you think is the best way to get messages about events out to the MCR?

Jack: From my experience as academic officer, we could promote individual events well using specially designed graphics, so that would be a good approach to use for individual MCR events. I’m keen to continue using the gazette to advertise external events as we can’t use this approach for every event that gets sent to the secretary.

Hustings for Treasurer

Initial Speech:

Jannat: I am a first year PhD students. I want to make sure that the books are balanced and we have the financial resources to fund events that we want to run! I want to make that happen and I also want to be involved in other committee business. I think this is what you need from committee members – people who are willing to pitch in – and this means I’m definitely willing to get involved with guest night.

Questions to the candidates:

Max: In the past there has been contention about allocating money for events that were determined for specific groups or people. How would you deal with this?

Jannat: Free food for all!

Rachel: If you are in favour of guest night, how do you see it running without an internal social secretary?

A discussion was had at the meeting in response to this, about getting people to run. It was finally concluded that the decision about how to run guest night in the absence of an internal social secretary rests in the hands of the incoming committee.

Hustings for Women’s Welfare

Initial Speeches:

Marija Pajevic: I am in my second year of a PhD in Crimonology. My background is in clinical psychology and psychotherapy. The skills I’ve learned working in these disciplines should be useful in the women’s welfare positions. I understand that being here has its ups and down, and can be stressful at times, and I want to be the person that you can talk to whenever. My background has also taught me to be very discreet, so I can bring that to this position.

Irene Lee: I’m a very introverted person. I think that because I am shy and introverted, I am very good at sympathising with people like me – I can listen to them and help them out. I also wanted to join the welfare team because I really benefited from the events that our current welfare team put on – the welfare teas and film nights for example.

Questions to the candidates:

Malavika: It’s great that you both have the attitude that you want to help people when they come to you, but it’s often the case that not many people come to you. Not necessarily because they don’t need you, but because they aren’t aware of the support you offer. How would you improve this?

Irene: I worked as an art curator for communities so I know how to raise awareness of our existence. I think we need more small events, like the tea, to help people relax and talk more so that they can open up to me.

Marija: I think I would just introduce myself initially by email. I think I would like to stress that people can just talk to me if they see me around in college (and I am here frequently). I also think that the social welfare events are important.

Max: What do you think about teaming up with other welfare officers to plan events? How would you get them involved with planning events with you?

Marija: I haven’t thought about it to be honest, but I feel that when I meet other people in the role I hope that we would make a good team and be able to discuss events that we can run together.

Irene: I would want to talk to the former officers, about how they ran things, and get their advice and build on that.

Voting is open from 9 am tomorrow (23rd January), so everyone is encouraged to exercise their democratic rights!